Slobodan Milosevic, on trial for genocide, claimed today that the massacre of more than 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica was concocted by the French secret service to turn world opinion against the Serbs.

The first witness to appear in the second part of the former Yugoslav president's war crimes trial in The Hague was from a former Serb-dominated enclave in Croatia.

Prosecutors allege that Milosevic designed and implemented a plan for the creation of a "greater Serbia," which led to the widespread killing of non-Serbs throughout the Balkan region.

In the second phase of his trial, he is facing 61 counts of war crimes, including genocide, for atrocities allegedly committed on his authority.

Milosevic denied involvement in the July, 1995 murder of an estimated 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, claiming Bosnian Serb paramilitaries had been paid by the French secret service to carry out the executions.

Bosnian Serb political and military leaders had not been involved in the worst civilian massacre in Europe since the Second World War, he said.

Neither General Ratko Mladic and General Radislav Krstic "knew anything of this massacre and I'm sure that military honour would never have permitted them to execute innocent civilians," he said.

"Ask (French president) Jacques Chirac about Srebrenica," Milosevic said, alleging that Bosnian Muslim officials and French UN General Bernard Janvier had conjured the deal to trigger world outrage and prompt Nato air raids against the Bosnian Serbs.

"I claim with full responsibility before the eyes of the world public that Serbia's policy was consistent with peace," Milosevic said.

Bosnian Serb General Krstic was convicted last year of genocide for commanding Serb forces during the week of killing in eastern Bosnia. Mladic, indicted by the UN. court in 1995, remains at large.